Last year, I made it a priority to create a more learner centered environment in my classroom. Students were asked to take ownership of their own learning as I started to incorporate more choice, project based learning, and future ready tasks. I am a big believer in the 4C's - Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Communication - and with the addition of Curiosity, I challenged my students to take risks and choose their own paths when it came to some of the lessons, writing assignments, and projects we completed. By the end of the year, I was thrilled with what my students accomplished and the enthusiasm they displayed during class.
This year, with students each equipped with a Chromebook, I craved an even more student centered environment, and my first goal was to start incorporating more HyperDocs in the classroom. A HyperDoc is a document created, using GAFE, that includes tasks and links to external resources in order to foster learning in the classroom. I read a fantastic book this summer that helped guide me in the process of planning and creating my first few HyperDocs: The HyperDoc Handbook. After creating and utilizing two HyperDocs in my English II classroom, I am amazed at how much I have learned about what needs to change in order to continue towards my goal of a student centered classroom that highlights the 4C's.
HyperDoc...Round 1
We always start the year with our sophomore students writing a narrative essay. I decided to revamp the assignment and created my first HyperDoc in order to provide students choice and ownership right away.
My first HyperDoc: Your Snapchat Story Narrative Assignment
After creating and using this first HyperDoc assignment, I figured out a few things that I didn't like and wanted to improve. With the Narrative HyperDoc lesson, I found the classroom environment quite boring because the students were just working silently, on their own. With this, I wanted to add a collaborative element to get the students up, moving, and talking with their classmates. I improvised in class and asked them to get up and talk to their peers periodically through the period. This was an effective quick fix, but again, I realized very quickly that I would have to add in some active collaborative activities into the HyperDoc if I wanted to liven up the classroom.
HyperDoc...Round 2We are starting The Catcher in the Rye next week, and in order to get them interested in the book and the controversy around it, I created a HyperDoc and Collaborative Web quest for them to complete. One of my colleagues has a web quest she created that I used as a starting point, and then I added some extra elements to incorporate research, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. I hoped it would help foster an engaging learning environment where students can take ownership of their learning. After day 1, I realized that although collaborative elements are incorporated, I still need to encourage them to actually engage in this part of the process. In addition, various students are rushing through the HyperDoc and not actually reading/viewing the resources provided. The process is better....but still needs work.
My second HyperDoc: Intro to Catcher - Exploration
What's next, you ask?
After reflecting and collaborating with my #BFF and coworker, Steve Wick, I plan to incorporate some formative assessments into the next HyperDoc or student centered lesson I create. I hope to try Recap to get verbal feedback from my students and/or some competitive digital formative assessment tools during the process or at the end of the lesson.
I love that I am learning so much as I go through this process, and I look forward to future successes and challenges as I work towards my goal of a student centered and engaging classroom environment!
#whatsup
FIRST!!
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